Bryce Milligan is a San Antonio poet, novelist and songwriter. His small publishing firm, Wings Press, turned 40 in 2015.

Bryce Milligan is a San Antonio poet, novelist and songwriter. His small publishing firm, Wings Press, turned 40 in 2015.

Photo: /Courtesy Wings Press

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Playwright and actor Amalia Ortiz, right, performing at Artpace in February, where she is the performing artist in residence. She has cancelled arrangements for Wings Press to publish her upcoming book, “The Canción Cannibal Cabaret,” because of accusations of inappropriate conduct made against its owner, Bryce Milligan, by a former student. less

Playwright and actor Amalia Ortiz, right, performing at Artpace in February, where she is the performing artist in residence. She has cancelled arrangements for Wings Press to publish her upcoming book, “The ... more

Authors cutting ties to San Antonio publisher over ex-student’s accusation

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A week after a former student’s allegations that San Antonio writer Bryce Milligan acted inappropriately when he was her teacher, other writers are canceling work with his publishing house, Wings Press.

On Tuesday, playwright and actor Amalia Ortiz called for Milligan to “step down” as the owner of Wings Press, with whom she had arranged to publish her upcoming book, “The Canción Cannibal Cabaret.”

In a statement posted on Facebook, Ortiz said she has put the project on hold while she searches for a new publisher, and appealed to Milligan to let go of the business.

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“Speaking up is the right thing to do, even against my personal interests,” she wrote. “Wings Press has been too important to San Antonio, to Texas, and to Latinx authors and readers to allow it to be yet another casualty of patriarchal power.”

“I am asking other members of our community to stand together in working to separate the future of Wings Press from the future of its current publisher.”

Last week, Hailey Laine Johnson posted a detailed recounting of Milligan’s creative writing class at the North East School of the Arts when she was a 14-year-old freshman. Johnson, 31, who now lives in New Mexico, said he made her his classroom favorite and lavished her with attention that included late night phone calls and texts. At one point, she said, Milligan expressed a desire to have sex with her. Her complaint prompted an investigation that led Milligan to resign in March 2002 before he could be fired, a North East Independent School District spokeswoman said.

Milligan issued a prepared statement denying he ever made sexual advances toward Johnson, calling their interaction “strictly platonic.” He has declined interview requests. After the accusation surfaced, several former students said they saw Johnson sit in Milligan’s lap and described other inappropriate touching in class.

He has since resigned from the Texas Institute of Letters, and the writing non-profit Gemini Ink removed him as a moderator from an upcoming discussion.

David Bowles, an author, translator and poet, wrote on Twitter that he had been in talks with Wings Press about his book “ROMANCES DE LOS SEÑORES DE LA NUEVA ESPAÑA,” a translation of Aztec texts, but would no longer work with the publishing house.

“I stand with all women against those men who would manipulate, gaslight, objectify, marginalize, or abuse them,” Bowles wrote.

Also looking for a new publisher are editors of The Latinx Archive, a two-volume fiction anthology by Latino and Latina writers that Wings Press was to print in 2019.

“We completely support the brave women who are coming forward to denounce those who have persecuted them.” said a statement by the editors, Alex Hernandez, Matthew David Goodwin and Sarah Rafael García.